Data analysis system for the F-16

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Data analysis system for the F-16

Atkinson, G.F. / Austin, S.C.

The use of desktop tools to retrieve and analyze flight test data has significantly increased the efficiency of these tasks during F-16 avionics systems flight testing. Technological advances, more commonly touted to advance the capabilities of on-board systems, have also enabled engineering staff members to retrieve and analyze large amounts of recorded test data in hours instead of the days or weeks that have been required in the recent past. The enabling technological advances provide the ability to start the analysis of collected flight test data within moments of the aircraft landing, and gives the engineer all of the tools to accomplish this analysis at his fingertips, without the need to wait for data service requests to be filled by a second party. The end result is a data analysis system that is timely, flexible, and cost effective. The flight test engineering staff knows prior to the next flight whether the instrumentation yielded the required data from the current flight or whether maintenance action or additional testing is required. Data can be gathered from the system as needed. Standing data reports for each flight are no longer necessary; only the required data is gathered. The entire data analysis system is assembled from commercially available, off the shelf components, at reasonable cost.